


Too Deep in Denial

by takethembystorm



Series: Tea Break [15]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 14:13:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8105494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takethembystorm/pseuds/takethembystorm
Summary: Marinette tries to handle Chat's sudden confession with something approaching grace.





	1. A Failure to Process

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](https://agreste-dupain-cheng.tumblr.com/post/143557572749/marichat-32). I recommend reading it first.

Marinette tries to keep her hands from trembling as she sews.

Okay.

Holy _fuck._

 _That_ was, uh, unexpected. The same way that having a landmine go off was unexpected.

Holy. _Fuck._

Chat is lying. Or joking again. Or just being a flirty hot rabbit as per usual.

She can feel her breathing start to pick up its pace, and forces herself to calm down.

But there hadn’t been a lie in the infinitesimal tremble of his voice, or the way in which his face had gone carefully blank, or in his tight, controlled breaths as he lounges on her chaise.

He loves her. He loves Ladybug, so this _has to be a lie_.

Marinette’s hands jerk in a sudden spasm of fury, and the needle tears through the fabric. She curses, sudden tears springing to her eyes, and pulls her ruined project free, tossing the ruined fabric to the floor.

“Princess?”

Shut up.

“Princess, are you all right?”

_Shut up._

Chat pads over to her and kneels, taking her trembling hands in his own.

“Princess?” he asks again, his voice soft and calm and _genuine_.

Marinette pulls her hands from his and shoves him, hard. Chat goes over backwards, landing hard on his back.

“ _Damn_ you, kitty,” she spits, an instant before she pounces upon him.  



	2. A Failure to Accept

“Tonight was a mistake,” she tells him as he’s about to leave that night.

He pauses and lowers himself from the railing of her terrace.  “A mistake?”

“Yes,” Marinette says.  “A mistake.”

Chat pauses for a minute.  “I fail to see how,” he says, reaching out to cradle her cheek; she slaps his hand away.

“Well I _don’t_ ,” she says.  “You _can’t_ love me.”

“I do,” he says, and there’s the quiet tremble in his voice again, but Marinette can’t stop the momentum of her words now as they burn forth from her lips.

“I _don’t_ love you,” she says forcefully.  “I _don’t._ I can’t.  I can’t ever.  What part of that don’t you _get?”_

His face goes still again as she speaks.  “I loved Ladybug,” he says, “even though she didn’t love me back.”

“Well maybe you should stop loving girls who don’t care about you.”

She regrets the words almost as soon as they spill forth, and she whirls and turns her back on him.  She doesn’t want to see his face.

“What’s the matter?” Chat murmurs, coming up behind her.  He doesn’t touch her, but stands there, close enough that she can feel the heat of him on her back.

“I don’t love you,” she says.  “I love someone else.”

“You kissed me,” he says.

“A mistake.”

He pauses before he speaks again, and for the first time a hint of anger sears in his words.  “Why are you so against us?” he asks.

“I love someone else,” she repeats.

He pauses, then withdraws.

“As you wish, then,” he says, before a whoosh of air marks his departure.

The next morning, Adrien studiously avoids looking at her.


End file.
